Being an account of one yarnthirsty wench and her never ending quest for the land of milk, honey and natural fibers!

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

500 LB Gorilla, ad nauseum

I haven't posted about the 500 lb gorilla a.k.a. the Culver City Unified School District a.k.a. SARB (well, technically, they are two gorillas, which means I am dealing with about 1,000 lbs of gorilla here) in a while.

There is gorilla poo everywhere.

My youngest, despite having medical revisions made to her IEP, despite bringing up her grades from F's (due to missed school, 2-3 days a week she's down right now, she's a smart kid but you can't pass if you aren't there) to C's across the board (and is trying to raise them higher), going to Saturday School, getting extra tutoring and in all ways trying to stay compliant with the district attendance office by bringing in a doctor's note for every. single. migraine. is still on the shit list with SARB (state attendance review board) and we have been referred to the next step of the SARB process, which is a meeting at the police station with various smaller gorillas, where they will decide if we are to be referred to the District Attorney for prosecution. I'm waiting on the date and time of this hearing. Apparently if we are referred on to the DA, it will be community service and a $250 fine every time she is marked absent/truant.

This has not raised my blood pressure at all. Well, much. Okay a little. And my cardio condition has returned with a vengeance, as has this massive sense of overwhelming anxiety, so my health is starting to suffer along with hers.

My oldest, having gone on a wonderful (we thought) "school approved" field trip to the Deep South for 10 days, has been marked "truant" for those dates. Because... *drumroll* the district approved the first trip on which all the other CCUSD students got to go. Since our girl had strep throat and was ordered not to fly by our family doctor, she had to make the trip up on a later date or we were out the $2,500 we'd paid for her to take the trip.

Seems obvious, right? Make the trip up, $2,500 well spent, everyone happy, one enriched child with a once in a lifetime educational experience.

So here is where this gets fun. The district will now not approve her make up trip as a "field trip" because it was out of state and she was not chaperoned by a CCUSD teacher and because we didn't get board approval before she went. We didn't know we needed to get it and since everyone was assuring us that this was an excused field trip for trip #1, it didn't occur to us or to the group putting on the trip that we would need special dispensation for her to make it up. Massive miscommunication? Yes. Massive clusterfuck? Absolutely. Our fault? Not really. Shit happens. I can't even communicate how stupid this is.

This? This, my friends, is the kind of bureaucratic b.s. that brought down the Roman Empire. Only instead of gladiators, we have America's Next Top Model. All we need are Visigoths and we're so there.

*head* meet *desk*

SO we've been referred to SARB for her "truancy" too.

*head* meet *desk* a little harder.

The good news is, her teachers (universally sane and rational beings) see the stupidity in this and are allowing her to make up the work she missed and are not grading her down for her unsanctioned foray to the Deep South. The school is going to allow her to go to Prom, even though technically her truancy makes her ineligible. So there's a little reason and milk of human kindness there, and a willingness to see beyond the snarl of bureaucratic idiocy.

I'm just done. Pasadena cannot happen fast enough. Two more months till we are out of this school district, and while SARB will follow us to the new district, we are going to be starting fresh and know the ways to avoid that particular gorilla in future.

Everytime I read one of you posts on this topic it makes me want to cry. what is this world coming to? I hope things improve for you on the other side of town. BTW, I just made the connection between your blog and your ravelry profile and wonder if we've ever met in person. If/when we do, I want to give you a big hug!

Here's hoping you catch a reasonable cop on a good day. Though I would think they'd appreciate that she's not exactly a gang member shooting heroine into her eyeballs on her supposed 'free time' nor one whom they feel they need to be armed to be comfortable around, and give you a break. But maybe that's just me. ;) Either way, good luck and soothing vibes your way.